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VENEFI´CIUM

VENEFI´CIUM the crime of poisoning, is frequently
mentioned in Roman history. Women were most addicted to it; but it seems not
improbable that this charge was frequently brought against women without
sufficient evidence of their guilt, like that of witchcraft in Europe, in
the Middle Ages. We find them condemned to death for this crime in seasons
of pestilence, when the popular mind is always in an excited state and ready
to attribute the calamities under which they suffer to the arts of
evil-disposed persons. Thus the Athenians, when the pestilence raged in
their city during the Peloponnessian war, supposed the wells to have been
poisoned by the Peloponnesians (Thuc. 2.48), and
similar instances occur in the history of almost all states. Still, however,
the crime of poisoning seems to have been much more, frequent in ancient
than in modern times; and this circumstance would lead persons to suspect it
in cases when there was no real ground for the suspicion. Respecting the
crime of poisoning at Athens, see PHARMACON GRAPHE

The first instance of its occurrence at Rome: in any public way was in the
consulship of M. Claudius Marcellus and C. Valerius, B.C. 331, when the city
was visited by a pestilence, After many of the leading men of the state had
died by the same kind of disease, a slave-girl gave information to the
curule aediles that it was owing to poisons prepared by the Roman matrons.
Following her information, they surprised about twenty matrons, among whom
were Cornelia and Sergia, both belonging to patrician families, in the act
of preparing certain drugs over a fire; and being compelled by the
magistrates to drink these in the forum, since they asserted that they were
not poisonous, they perished by. their own wickedness. Upon this further
informations were laid, and as many as a hundred and seventy matrons were
condemned (Liv, 8.18; compare V. Max. 2.5.3;
Oros. iii 10;, August. de Civ. Dei, 3.17). next read of
poisoning being carried on upoan an extensive scale as one of the
consequences of the introduction of the worship of Bacchus (Liv. 39.8) [BACCHANALIA]. In B.C. 184, the praetor Q. Naevius
Matho was commanded by the senate to investigate such cases (deveneficiisquaerere): he spent four months in the
investigation, which was principally carried on in the municipia, and
conciliabula, and, according to Valerius of Antium, he condemned 2000
persons (Liv. 39.38, 41). We again find mention of a public investigation into cases of
poisoning, by order of the senate, in B.C. 180, when a pestilence raged at
Rome, and many of the magistrates and other persons, of high rank had
perished. The investigation was conducted in the city and within ten miles
of it by the praetor C. Claudius, and beyond. the ten miles by the praetor
C. Maenius. Hostilia, the widow of the consul C. Calpurnius, who had died in
that year, was accused of having poisoned her husband, and condemned on what
appears to have been mere suspicion (Liv.
40.37). In B.C. 154 two consulars were said to have been poisoned by
their wives (Liv. Ep. xlviii.; V. Max.
6.3, 8). Cases of what may be called
private poisoning, in opposition to those mentioned above, frequently
occurred: so Quint. Inst. 5.11, 39, “nullam adulteram non eandem esse
veneficam” (cf. Auct. ad Herenn. 1, 23; Plin. Nat. 2. § § 156-157).
The speech of Cicero in behalf of Cluentius supplies us with several
particulars on this subject. Under the Roman emperors it was carried on to a
great extent, and some females who excelled in the art were in great
request. One of the most celebrated of these was Locusta who poisoned
Claudius at the command of Agrippina, and Britannicus at that of Nero the
latter of whom even placed persons under her to be instructed in the art
(Tac. Ann. 12.66, 13.15; Suet. Nero
33; Juv. 1.71). For a fuller list of
poisoning cases, see Mayor's note on Juv. 1.70.

The first legislative enactment especially directed against poisoning was a
law of the dictator Sulla--Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis--passed in
B.C. 82, which continued in force, with some alterations, to the latest
times. It contained provisions against all who made, bought, sold,
possessed, or gave poison for the purpose of poisoning (Cic. Clu. 54, 158; Marcian, Dig. 48, 8, 3; Inst. 4.18, 5). The punishment fixed
by this law was, according to Marcian, the deportatio in insulam and the
confiscation of property; but it was probably in the earlier period the
interdictioaquaeetignis, since the
deportatio under the emperors took the place of the interdictio, and the
expression in the Digest was suited to the time of the writers or compilers.
[LEX CORNELIA p. 39.]
By a senatusconsultum passed subsequently, a female who gave drugs or poison
for the purpose of producing conception even without any evil intent, was
banished (relegata) if the person to whom she
administered them died in consequence. By another senatusconsultum all
diruggists (pigmentarii) who administered
poisons carelessly “purgationis causa,” were liable to the
penalties of this law: [PHAIMACOPOLA.] In the time
of Marcian (that of Alexander Severus) this crime was punished capitally in
the case of persons of lower rank (humiliores),
who were exposed to wild beasts but persons of higher rank (altiores) were condemned to the deportatio in
insulam (Dig. l.c.).

The word veneficium was also applied to potions,
incantations, &c. (Cic. Brut. 60,
217; Petron. 118); whence we find
veneficus and venefica used in the sense of a sorcerer and sorceress in
general. [SUPERSTITIO] For
the poisons employed, cf. Dioscor, deVenen.,
and other passages collected by Professor Mayor. It is noticeable that
mineral poisons were unknown (Quintil. Lect. 350, p. 741 B).
See further on this subject Rein in Paully.: s. v. veneficium, venenum; Mayor, l.c.